RAMP

RAMP is a deterministic local development stack manager for Windows x64. It orchestrates Apache, MySQL, and PHP through a formally defined state machine — no race conditions, no orphaned processes, no partial config writes.

Replace XAMPP or Laragon with something you can read, audit, and trust.

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Features

• Deterministic — every state transition is explicit: STATE + EVENT → NEW STATE + SIDE EFFECTS
• Safe — every service runs inside a Windows Job Object; killing RAMP kills the entire process tree, no zombies
• Observable — all transitions logged; events are replayable for debugging
• Fast — sub-second UI, Apache ready in ≤ 3 s, MySQL ready in ≤ 5 s
• Self-provisioning — generates httpd.conf, my.ini, php.ini, and initialises the MySQL data directory on first run
• System tray — lives quietly in the tray; full egui status window on demand
• Crash recovery — automatic restart with exponential backoff (1 s → 2 s → 4 s → 8 s → Error)

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Requirements

Requirement	Notes
Windows 10/11 x64	Only supported platform
Apache HTTP Server 2.4 (Win64, VS17)	From Apache Lounge
MySQL 9.x Community (ZIP)	ZIP archive, not installer
PHP 8.x Thread Safe (ZIP)	TS x64 ZIP — required for PHP-CGI FastCGI
Visual C++ Redistributable 2022 x64	Required by Apache Lounge builds

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Installation

1. Download the release binary

Grab ramp.exe from the latest release and place it at:

C:\ramp\ramp.exe

2. Extract Apache and MySQL

Extract the Apache ZIP so that httpd.exe ends up at:

C:\ramp\apache\bin\httpd.exe

Extract the MySQL ZIP so that mysqld.exe ends up at:

C:\ramp\mysql\bin\mysqld.exe

Extract the PHP ZIP so that php-cgi.exe ends up at:

C:\ramp\php\php-cgi.exe

The final layout should look like:

C:\ramp\
  ramp.exe
  apache\
    bin\httpd.exe
    modules\
    ...
  mysql\
    bin\mysqld.exe
    lib\
    share\
    ...
  php\
    php-cgi.exe
    ext\
    ...

3. Install the Visual C++ Redistributable

Run vc_redist.x64.exe if you haven't already.

4. Run RAMP

Double-click ramp.exe. On first launch RAMP will:

1. Generate ramp.toml (ports 80 + 3306 + 9000)
2. Create apache\conf\httpd.conf, apache\htdocs\index.php, mysql\my.ini, php\php.ini
3. Run mysqld --initialize-insecure (~10–20 s, once only)
4. Show the system tray icon and status window

Click Start All to bring up all three services. Apache will be at http://127.0.0.1/, MySQL at 127.0.0.1:3306 (root, no password), and PHP-CGI will be listening on 127.0.0.1:9000 (FastCGI, proxied from Apache).

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Configuration

Edit C:\ramp\ramp.toml to change ports:

install_dir = "C:\\ramp"

[apache]
port = 80

[mysql]
port = 3306

[php]
port = 9000

RAMP validates the entire file before accepting it — an invalid config is rejected completely and the last valid config is preserved. After editing, restart the affected service from the UI.

httpd.conf, my.ini, and php.ini are generated once and never overwritten — edit them freely for custom virtual hosts, extensions, etc.

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Architecture

RAMP is a single binary built around a pure reducer:

STATE + EVENT → NEW STATE + SIDE EFFECTS

Layer	File	Role
Types	state.rs	AppState, ServiceState machine, all constants
Events	events.rs	Event enum (11 variants) + SideEffect enum
Logic	reducer.rs	Pure function — no I/O, fully unit-tested
I/O	executor.rs	Translates SideEffects into process ops and threads
Processes	process.rs	Windows Job Object spawn/kill
Health	health.rs	Apache HTTP + MySQL TCP + PHP TCP readiness and health checks
Config	config.rs	ramp.toml load/validate + atomic write
Paths	paths.rs	Install-dir contract, traversal rejection, symlink rejection
Log	logger.rs	Bounded ring buffer (1 000 lines)
Apache conf	apache_conf.rs	Generate httpd.conf with PHP FastCGI proxy
MySQL conf	mysql_conf.rs	Generate my.ini, initialize data dir
PHP conf	php_conf.rs	Generate php.ini for PHP-CGI
Tray	tray.rs	Windows system tray
UI	ui.rs	egui status window

Service state machine

Stopped ──START──► Starting ──PROCESS_READY──► Running
                      │                           │
               PROCESS_EXIT                 PROCESS_EXIT
                      │                           │
                      └──────────► Crashed ◄──────┘
                                     │
                               AUTO_RETRY (×4, backoff)
                                     │
                                  Starting
                                     │
                             (max retries exceeded)
                                     │
                                   Error

Any state ──FATAL_ERROR──► Error
Running   ──STOP──► Stopping ──PROCESS_EXIT──► Stopped

Process isolation

Every service spawns inside a dedicated Windows Job Object with JOB_OBJECT_LIMIT_KILL_ON_JOB_CLOSE. Dropping the job handle terminates the entire process tree — Apache child workers, MySQL threads, everything — with no orphans.

If AssignProcessToJobObject fails the service transitions directly to Error and never starts.

Health checks

Service	Check	Pass condition	Interval	Fail threshold
Apache	HTTP GET 127.0.0.1:port/	200–399 + Server: Apache	2 s	3 consecutive
MySQL	TCP connect + 4-byte greeting	Handshake starts	2 s	3 consecutive
PHP	TCP connect to FastCGI port	Connection succeeds	2 s	3 consecutive

Three consecutive failures trigger HEALTH_CHECK_FAIL, which kills the service and schedules a retry.

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Building from source

# Prerequisites: Rust stable toolchain (rustup.rs), MSVC build tools
git clone https://github.com/rbenzing/ramp.git
cd ramp
cargo build --release
# Binary at target\release\ramp.exe

Run the test suite:

cargo test
cargo clippy -- -D warnings
cargo fmt -- --check

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Security model

• Services bind to 127.0.0.1 only — no external exposure by default
• All binary paths are absolute and validated against the install directory — no PATH-based execution
• Environment variables are sanitised before spawning child processes
• Config writes are atomic (temp → fsync → rename) — a crash during write cannot corrupt the config
• Symlinks are rejected for the config directory, binaries, and data directory
• MySQL is initialised with --initialize-insecure (no root password) — suitable for local development only

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License

RAMP is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License v3.0.